14 September 2025

One of Melbourne’s ‘ugliest’ buildings and now revealed to be badly built to boot.

South Yarra Square on the corner of Punt & Commercial Roads was completed about 1996, and first found fame for being built 1.29m higher than permitted, which then Minister Robert Maclellan resolved with a fine instead of demolition.

But also, ugly. They did try somewhat, I like brown, and bricks, but not this much and it’s a bit lumpen, and very 70s looking, complete with bits of ‘cast iron’ lace, now removed, and silly mansards. Plus it’s built right on the very busy corner, must be noisy and dusty.

In recent years flooding of the basement led to building checks which according to the owners found an awful lot wrong with it, $26mill worth, including the use of an unapproved flammable polystyrene product for the cladding (now removed inside). The text slides are from the Toorak Times, which had more detail than the Age.

It’s nearly 30 years old so you wouldn’t really expect the builder to still be liable, but there’s a 10 year limit anyway. But I blame the change from municipal to private building surveyors to approve plans, materials, and final sign offs, I mean they’re hardly independent. Also, there should indeed be rules that major built components should last 20 years, and maybe 10 years for others, with a required ongoing sinking fund from owners to cover those known future costs.

The owners here can’t possibly afford the fixes, but in this case I say the solution is for them to sell up to a developer who should be allowed to build maybe 12 storeys, with some setbacks, I mean there’s 10 floors right across the street, and pretty ugly too.

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